Google Gets Back To Violet Blue

Hey, have you read this week’s Violet Blue, Don’t Be Evil (Or A Dyke, Or Trans)? While Violet’s the Chronicle’s sex columnist, her interests and advocacy go way beyond the different ways tab a (or a replica thereof) can fit into slot b (or c, or d). For example, today she’s taking on Google AdWords, the company that puts tofu on the table for a lot of us internet types.

Bay Area transgender, sex-positive queer-porn site Red Handed Porn (redhandedporn.com) signed up as a client of the AdWords service, only to discover that finding AdWords-approved words to describe their brand (and potential clients’ brand identity) meant choosing terminology deeply offensive to most transgender individuals. At the same time, they found that terms chosen as respectful self-labels by the trans culture were rejected by AdWords as — shockingly — “teen porn concepts.” What’s more, Red Handed found that even the term “dyke” is considered a four-letter word by the service, while terms that deeply offend trans women are accepted. (Unfortunately, Google did not respond to my request for comment for this piece.)

“We appreciate the feedback from the parties in question and the opportunity to hear different perspectives. We will use this information and other feedback, including how these terms will actually get used in ads, to further develop and refine lists that we use to identify potentially unacceptable content. It is important to Google that we are effectively addressing the needs and concerns of both our advertisers and users.”

Hilariously, in Violet’s article she refers to an AdWords user as being frustrated by Google’s “form email responses.” However, I’m finding it almost completely impossible not to read the above quote in a robot voice, all “resistance is futile.” Violet, are you sure that this response came from an actual human being? Or (more worrisome) is Google not using form email after all, and someone who works there actually talks this way?